Airline offers €39 fares from Nice

In what at first sight appears to be a cashflow exercise, Air France’s low-cost subsidiary, Hop!, is offering one-way tickets to a number of French destinations from Nice for the bargain price of €39 in the early part of next year.

Destinations are: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Metz-Nancy-Lorraine, Paris-Orly, Strasbourg, Toulouse. Tickets at this special price must be bought before November 21, and are valid for flights between January 2 and April 30, 2017.

Meanwhile the French train operator, SNCF, is offering half-price tickets on TER trains in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region until November 27.

There are no conditions attached concerning age, but travel must take place only on trains due to depart between 10 am to 3 pm, during off peak hours. Tickets under the “Cool Happy Fifty” scheme can be bought online or at stations.

[caption id="attachment_1533" align="alignnone" width="640"] Photo: Patrick Cardinal[/caption]
Air France has won the support of the biggest pilots’ union, SNPL, to create a low-cost airline. “Boost” will be launched in the autumn, using pilots on the same salaries as at Air France. Pilots approved the move by 78.2 percent with a turnout of almost 83 percent after several months of talks.
But while the pilots at Boost will not suffer from a reduction in salaries, cabin crew will be hired at a lower cost, Air France said on Monday, July 17. Air France has suffered a series of pilots’ strikes that have cost the airline millions of euros in lost revenues.
Air France plans to launch Boost in the fall on medium-haul and then in the summer of 2018 on long-haul flights, with the objective of maintaining routes currently running at a deficit on Air France and adding new ones.
The pilots' union said it welcomed the "realisation of months of negotiation. We hope this agreement will create a dynamic of confidence, a prerequisite for preparing for the reforms of our company and thus successfully confronting competition."

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[caption id="attachment_10426" align="alignnone" width="640"] Photo: Josh Hallett[/caption]
British Airways cabin crew who cancelled a strike due to take place over the Christmas holiday weekend have now voted to walk out for 48 hours, starting on January 10.
In a war of words, Unite union official Oliver Richardson said: "British Airways is needlessly provoking strike action by refusing to extend the mandate of the strike ballot and allow meaningful talks to take place. Instead of listening to why its 'mixed fleet' cabin crew rejected the offer negotiated at Acas, British Airways has sought instead to try and bully a workforce of young men and women who are trying to eke out a living on poverty pay.”
The airline retaliated by saying the cabin crew had chosen to target BA’s customers. "We will plan to ensure that all our customers travel to their destinations," he said. "Mixed fleet Unite represents only 15 percent of our cabin crew.”
The airline said its contingency plans will be made known on Friday, January 6.
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